[PIGMI] TRON the game

[George]

Hey Simon,

On 23/12/2010 10:44 AM, Simon Wittber wrote:
>> Ah, but the analogy here is really: The pie was gristle and mush, but it was
>> a great pie because it has nice tomato sauce on it.
>>
>> Or: The cake was mouldy and rancid, but it had great icing so the cake was
>> excellent.
> We could go in circles here by adding various adjectives, but I think
> you understand my point, which is that a soundtrack is integral to the
> entire experience.

I do, just as I hope you understand my point that a soundtrack cannot 
make a movie great, if that movie is otherwise lacking.  Hence my 
clarification of the analogy: a lousy cake doesn't become a great cake 
just because it has great icing, regardless of how integral they are.

>> I'm reacting to the apparent rating of Tron highly based solely upon it's
>> visual and auditory elements. I notice nobody has said anything about the
>> story, or characters, or really anything else. Was there a single character
>> you actually cared about in the film at all? Does anyone feel the story was
>> well crafted or clever or interesting or well thought out?
> No, as I said previously, the story was simple and common, but that
> doesn't make it bad.

It's all the really terrible ideas and disjointed-ness (if that's word) 
and nonsensical elements  they put in that made it bad :)

>> A soundtrack alone cannot carry a film - there must be more, otherwise you
>> don't really have a movie at all, you have the equivalent of a fireworks
>> display - great sight and sound, but no other elements.
> I disagree here, Close Encounters of the Third Kind in particular has
> no discernible story, yet the music and musical elements of that film
> tell a story by themselves. When I hear the signature sequence of
> notes from the film, I find it is impossible not to relive the
> experience of "visiting aliens", but the story is not something I
> remember at all.

I think you're talking about something entirely different. Everybody 
remembers the signature note sequence from Close Encounters. It was 
memorable. That the movie had a notably memorable element that was based 
on sound does not suddenly make it into some kind of storyless, 
sound-driven medium. It was a movie, and it did have a story. I don't 
recall much about the story either (my god, how many years ago was it?), 
but I remember the lead character played by Richard Dreyfuss and the 
mound of potato mash he made in the shape of the mountain :) Doesn't 
meant the film had no story and was fundamentally a food-driven experience.

Another example: The Matrix. It's been years since I've seen this but I 
can recall with clarity the "lobby" scene and can hear the awesome 
baseline as the music starts just before the action. I couldn't tell you 
the artist or song name but it's a great tune and was integral to the 
scene and helped make it great.

I can't recall a single tune, melody, riff or anything musical from the 
entire Tron movie soundtrack and I saw it about 5 days ago.


> I don't think I can help you here. Maybe have a go at crafting some
> audio from a few loops, and the experience may enlighten you. :-) In
> the soundtrack, progression comes from layering of sound, and slowly
> adding, subtracting and multiplying filters and effects, I think they
> made good use of bit-destruction-type filters on a fairly slow drum
> track.

Thanks for the suggestion. As it happens I've been composing my own 
songs for years for various personal use as well as in my games. I lay 
down drum tracks in Acoustica Beatcraft and record guitar/bass/vocal 
tracks and mix them altogether in Sony ACID Pro. I often make use of 
audio filters, envelopes and effects for various elements in the songs.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not now, nor have ever made any claim such as 
"I'm better than Daft Punk" or any other nonsense. I'm strictly amateur.

However I do feel the music of Tron was ordinary at best, and somehow 
the inherent "street cred" that Daft Punk carry with them is influencing 
people to rate it more highly than it deserves.

>> Sounds like you may be a Daft Punk fan? Would you enjoy any film as long as
>> it had a Daft Punk soundtrack?
> No, in general I don't listen to Daft Punk, and I think this
> soundtrack is different to their usual stuff.

Would you buy the Tron Movie Soundtrack? If not, why not?


>> The story wasn't simple. It was a mess that had absolutely zero internal
>> consistency and sense. It meandered, lost the plot (literally), fell to
>> pieces, bored you to tears and went nowhere, attempted nothing, failing to
>> be interesting, engaging, or entertaining. It raises more questions than it
>> could ever possibly answer, and it does not, cannot answer them as the
>> film-makers literally have no idea.
> Son loses Dad. Son finds Dad who is in trouble. Son tries to help Dad.
> Dad sacrifices himself to save Son. Game Over. Banal, simple and
> common, yet overall it was a great trip. Also, I think all questions
> were answered when he turned the computer off in the last moments of
> the film! :-)

Oooh, I was intentionally avoiding spoilers. What you described was the 
basic plot sequence, but the story touches upon a host of other things 
including miracles, creation, new worlds, new races, playing god, 
genocide, transforming the world, the nature of good and evil, etc. I 
say touches upon, when really it kind of throws these concepts clumsily 
into the mix then fails utterly to do anything worthwhile with them or 
use them in a meaningful way. A missed opportunity really.

You say all questions were answered? The film raises countless 
questions, to which there are no answers because the film-makers simply 
do not know. Hence the movie makes no sense from start to finish.

> I think if you judge this film as a programmer or developer, it cannot
> stand up to any kind of scrutiny. You have to treat it as an
> incredibly fanciful tale with no basis in reality. I had to
> consciously do this myself, early in the film.
>

What is the value of something that cannot withstand scrutiny? Not that 
I was concerned with scrutiny at the time of watching....I recall being 
alternately bored or boggled by sheer mindlessness.

However this is a quarter of a billion dollar production - why not 
subject it to scrutiny or judgement?

If someone hung a painting in an art gallery it would be subjected to 
scrutiny, yet somehow a movie is exempt if it has a killer soundtrack.

-- 
   George